Several studies have shown that surfing can heal and greatly improve mental health. That we already knew. But there's a new update: we might not necessarily need beaches to get similar results.
A study led by Tim Trythall, impact and research manager at The Wave Project, found that surf therapy doesn't necessarily need an ocean beach to produce positive results.
The evaluation followed 360 young people through six-week surf therapy programs. A total of 302 took part at beaches, while 58 surfed at inland wave pools near Bristol and Edinburgh.
Both groups improved on every measure recorded before and after the program across all five outcomes, with remarkably similar improvements.
The ocean produced the bigger wellbeing increase
The biggest difference appeared in the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, a measure that scores emotional wellbeing from 0 to 100.
The average beach score rose from 56.4 to 76.5, an increase of 20.1 points.
The wave pool group started higher, at 62.5, and finished at 73.1, an increase of 10.6 points.
That means the increase among beach participants was 9.5 points larger than the increase among wave pool participants. The difference was statistically significant, with p = .003.
The effect sizes tell the same story. The beach program produced an effect size of 1.08, compared with 0.57 for the wave pool program.
But there is an important detail behind those numbers. The wave pool group started the program with wellbeing scores 6.1 points higher than the beach group.
By the end, the gap had fallen to just 3.4 points, with average scores of 76.5 at the beach and 73.1 in the wave pool.
So while the beach group improved more, both groups ended the six weeks at broadly similar levels.
The study does not explain why the beach group recorded the larger increase. It also cannot show that the ocean itself caused the difference.
Surfing helped build confidence in both settings
When it came to self-belief, the difference between the beach and wave pool was much smaller.
Beach participants increased their self-belief score by 0.59 points, compared with 0.43 points for the wave pool group.
The ability to keep going through difficulties increased by 0.67 points at the beach and 0.59 points in the wave pool.
Pride in achievements increased by 0.54 points among beach participants and 0.48 points among wave pool participants.
All three measures improved significantly in both groups.
But despite the slightly larger numbers for the beach group, none of the differences in improvement were statistically significant.
The p-values were .30 for self-belief, .62 for perseverance, and .71 for pride.
In other words, the data do not show that surfing at the beach produced greater gains in these areas than surfing at an inland wave pool.
Connection to other people was almost identical
The numbers become even closer when looking at social connection.
Participants rated their sense of connection to other people on a seven-point scale.
The beach group went from 3.6 to 4.4, an improvement of 0.80 points; the wave pool group went from 4.1 to 5.0, an improvement of 0.83 points.
That is a difference of just 0.03 points between the two improvements.
The statistical test produced p = .932, meaning there was no significant difference between the settings.
The effect sizes were also almost identical, at 0.49 for the beach group and 0.53 for the wave pool group.
Interestingly, the wave pool participants had higher connection scores both before and after the program. But they did not improve more. Both groups increased by almost exactly the same amount.
The beach had an edge when it came to making friends
There was one other statistically significant difference.
When asked whether they had made new friends during the program, 81.5 percent of beach participants said yes.
Among wave pool participants, the figure was 69.0 percent.
That is a difference of 12.5 percentage points, and it was statistically significant at p = .049.
This was the only significant difference among seven questions about the participants' experience of the program, apart from the separate wellbeing analysis.
The study does not explain why the friendship numbers differed.
However, one practitioner suggested that beach sessions may give young people more informal time to talk between waves or during slower conditions, whereas wave pool sessions tend to run on a more predictable schedule.
That explanation was not tested by the evaluation, though.
The other numbers were high in both settings.
Almost everyone had fun: 99.3 percent at the beach and 98.3 percent in wave pools.
Almost everyone said they learned something new: 98.0 percent versus 96.6 percent.
The figures for feeling valued were 97.0 percent versus 98.3 percent, while 98.0 percent of beach participants and 94.8 percent of wave pool participants said they were able to be themselves.
Feeling more confident was reported by 94.4 percent of beach participants and 91.4 percent of wave pool participants.
None of those differences were statistically significant.
The surfing environment was not the only difference
There is a reason to be cautious about turning these numbers into a simple ocean-versus-wave-pool argument.
The two groups were not randomly assigned to their locations. The people taking part in the beach programs may have differed from those attending the inland programs before they even got in the water.
The sample sizes were also very different. There were 302 beach participants but only 58 wave pool participants.
That smaller inland sample means there is more uncertainty around its estimates.
The researchers also combined the two inland locations into a single wave pool group, so the results do not show whether the Bristol and Edinburgh programs produced different results.
And there was no control group of young people who did not take part in surf therapy.
That means the study can show that the young people improved during the six-week program, but it cannot prove that surf therapy itself caused those improvements.
It also cannot establish that the larger wellbeing increase at the beach was caused by the natural ocean environment.
What the numbers say about surfing and wave pools
The most interesting part of the study is that the difference between the ocean and the wave pool was smaller than might be expected.
Both groups improved significantly across every measure.
For self-belief, perseverance, pride, and connection to other people, the amount of improvement was statistically similar.
The two clear differences were wellbeing and friendship.
Beach participants gained 20.1 WHO-5 points, compared with 10.6 points in the wave pool. And 81.5 percent of beach participants said they had made new friends, compared with 69.0 percent of those in the wave pool.
Those figures do not prove that natural waves are better therapy than artificial ones.
They do show that substantial positive changes were recorded in both environments, while leaving some interesting questions about what happens when surf therapy moves from the coastline to an inland wave pool.
More data, particularly from larger inland groups and repeated years of programs, will be needed to see whether these differences remain.
Words by Luís MP | Founder of SurferToday.com
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